We know all the right questions to ask to optimise your translations process. That means that you’ll get your Pashto translations back quicker and in the long run, cheaper.

Your Pashto translations might be technical in nature, or require a creative twist to make them work like native texts.

Your TranslateMedia Project Manager will hand-pick a team of professional Pashto translators to match exactly the skills sets required to do your work to the highest possible quality.

We have specialist teams of Pashto linguists in various fields and competences. They are experts in their industry, with relevant knowledge and experience, and we assign them to work according to their skills sets.

Although many of our Pashto linguists are located in Afghanistan we also have a large number of mother tongue Pashto translators and interpreters dispersed all around the world. Our global Project Management presence and dispersed teams of Pashto translators means that we can offer you real advantages where you have tight turnaround requirements.

Pashto Interpreting Service

Each Pashto interpreting assignment is unique, and there are various different types of interpreting to suit different situations.

We advise clients to plan in advance, book Pashto interpreting services early, and always give very clear instructions on what is expected and required from the interpreting team.

Our experience in Pashto interpreting is extensive and broad; we have provided Pashto interpreters for large international events, down to personal shopping trips for VIPs. We will ask you all the right questions to make sure that we understand what sort of interpreting you need and we can offer advice in case of any questions.

Our Project Managers can then build you a team of Pashto interpreters and brief them specifically for your assignment. We can source Pashto interpreters, find booths and audio equipment suppliers, and put together interpreting teams with exactly the right competences and knowledge, all over the world.

If you would like a quote for interpreting please let us know:

the languages that you need interpreting

the number of speakers/attendees

the venue

audio or other equipment you need

dates for the interpreting

Pashto; alternatively spelled Pushto, Pakhto or Pukhto, also known historically as Pathani and Afghani, is the native language of the Pashtun people of South-Central Asia. Pashto is a part of the Eastern Iranian group of languages. Pashto is one of two official languages of Afghanistan, with the other being Dari, and Pashto is also spoken as a regional language in northwestern and western Pakistan and among the Pashtun diaspora around the world.

Pashto is part of the Northeastern Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian language family, although Ethnologue has it listed as Southeastern Iranian. The number of Pashto-speakers or Pashtuns is estimated to be around 40–60 million people worldwide.

As a national language of Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the south, east and southwest, but also in some western and northern parts of the country. The correct numbers of speakers are unavailable, but various different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of around 35–60% of the population of Afghanistan.

In Pakistan, Pashto is more of a provincial language, spoken as a first language by only around 15.42% of Pakistan’s population of 170 million people. It is the main language of the majority Pashtun- regions of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and northern Balochistan. It is also spoken in parts of Attock and Mianwali districts of the Punjab province as well as by Pashtuns who are found in different cities throughout the country. Modern Pashto communities are found in the cities of Hyderabad and Karachi in Sindh. With as high as 7 million people by some estimates, the city of Karachi has by far the largest concentration of urban Pashtun population in the world that means there are more Pashtuns in Karachi than in any other city in the world. As per the demographic ratio, Pashtuns are about a quarter of Karachi’s population.

Pashto, since 1936, is one of the two endorsed languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari (Persian). Since the start of the 18th century, all the monarchs of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns apart from Habibullah Kalakani, and most of them were also bilingual although Amānullāh Khān had Pashto as his second language. Persian was the literary language of the royal court and was much more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the tribes as their main native tongue. It was Amanullah Khan who began promoting Pashto throughout his reign as a marker of ethnicity and a symbol of what he had called official nationalism, and he then led Afghanistan to independence after defeating the British colonial power in the Third Anglo-Afghan War. During the 1930s, a movement began to come to prominence that promoted Pashto as a language of the government, art and administration with the establishment of a Pashto Society Pashto Anjuman, this happened in 1931 and then followed the installation of the Kabul University in 1932 and then came the formation of the Pashto Academy Pashto Tolana in 1937. Although this did officially strengthen the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite still regarded Persian as a language that was sophisticated and a symbol of a cultured upbringing. King Zahir Shah subsequently followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed that both Persian and Pashto were to be utilized and studied by officials in 1933. In 1936, Pashto was granted formally the status of an official language with a full set of rights to usage in all aspects of education and government by a royal decree under Zahir Shah even though the ethnically Pashtun royals and bureaucrats were made up of people who mostly spoke Persian. This meant that Pashto became a national language and a huge symbol for Afghan nationalism.